Name: The Sirens of Mars
ISBN: 9781101904831

Sarah Stewart Johnson

Mars was once similar to Earth, but today there are no rivers, no lakes, no oceans. Yet multiple spacecraft are circling Mars, sweeping over Terra Sabaea, Syrtis Major, the dunes of Elysium, and Mare Sirenum-- on the brink, perhaps, of a staggering find. Johnson tells the story of how she and other researchers have scoured Mars for signs of life. She interlaces her journey as a female scientist with tales of other seekers, to offer an unlikely natural history of a place where no human has ever set foot, while providing a vivid portrait of our quest to defy our isolation in the cosmos. -- adapted from jacket

Searching for Life on Another World

The Sirens of Mars

SARAH STEWART. JOHNSON

Mars was once similar to Earth, but today it has no rivers, no lakes, no oceans. Coated in red dust, the terrain is bewilderingly empty. It is an unlikely place to pin our hopes of finding life elsewhere in the Universe. And yet multiple spacecraft are circling Mars, sweeping over Terra Sabaea, Syrtis Major, the dunes of Elysium and Mare Sirenum - on the brink, perhaps, of a discovery that would inspire humankind as much as any in our history. In this beautifully observed book, award-winning planetary scientist Sarah Stewart Johnson traces the history of our explorations of this enigmatic planet from the dawn of the Space Age to the breathtaking discoveries of today's landers, orbiters and rovers. With poetic precision, she interlaces her own personal journey as a scientist and a mother with tales of other seekers, from Carl Sagan to her own mentor Maria Zuber, who have scoured Mars for signs of life, transforming the planet from a distant point of light into a world of its own. In the process, she shows how the story of Mars is also a story about Earth: this other world has been our mirror, our foil, a tell-tale reflection of our own anxieties and yearnings. At a time when Mars exploration is reaching new heights, Sarah Stewart Johnson reveals how the quest to explore it a deeply human attempt to discover - if we're lucky - that we're not alone.

Andrew John Kinney

What a wonderful book about the beauty of science, and in particular about the search for life beyond Earth. Sarah Johnson's account of the search for life on Mars is a comprehensive description of mankind's interest in, and theories about Mars since ancient times, but it focuses on the last 150 years or so. It is interesting to remember how little we knew about the red planet until the first fly-by of Mars in 1965; it was not even known before then that Mars had craters on its surface. The general belief before that first Mariner mission in 1965 was that it was a desert planet, but with an Earth-like atmosphere. As a child, I watched Twilight Zone episodes and read Ray Bradbury stories that imagined such a world: Arizona with a red tint, probably including strange desert creatures and vegetation. The book tells the story of Lyndon Johnson sighing with disappointment when he was presented with the very first clear photos of the Martian surface by NASA, and acknowledging sadly that it was more like the moon than the extraterrestrial Arizona they all had imagined.

The tale of the AH84001 meteorite which was blasted off the surface of Mars by the impact of a much larger object on Mars, and ultimately landed in Antarctica is a good representation of how the scientific method works, and how "extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof". The images of possible fossilized bacteria seen in the meteorite is intriguing even if scientists could never quite positively establish whether those were indeed fossilized bacteria revealed by the electron microscope. A substantial portion of the book focuses on the series of probes, landers, and rovers we have sent to Mars since 1965, and what they have found. And what scientists have found is that there were definitely areas of Mars with flowing water, perhaps for a billion years, and that at least in some places, there were all the necessary molecules and conditions for life to emerge, possibly enduring even until today. It's an exciting, interesting story, and Sarah's personal journey with JPL, academia, and her family makes it an engaging read; her many cultural references from Voltaire and Swift to Aristotle and Euclid are well integrated into the story and bring context to the human need to explore and to understand. She makes clear what an inhospitable place the surface of Mars is today, with no magnetosphere to stop cosmic radiation, as Earth's protective magnetic field does, and virtually no atmosphere. I knew that beforehand, but her articulation of the conditions is a good antidote to optimistic thoughts about colonizing Mars. After all, what fun is it to live underground for life, which is what would be required to protect colonists against the cosmic energy bombarding Mars 24/7. And, fun fact: the sky on Mars is yellow, but sometimes looks blue just at sunset.

I highly recommend this to anyone who has even a passing interest in space exploration or science.

Andrew Marti

Through Mars and our history of exploring it, we can discover our place in the universe. A host of explorers have struggled to understand, to learn about the planet, and find life on it. The author is a part of that journey and shares a history of its exploration here.

The Sirens of Mars Searching for Life on Another World

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